The romance of Apuleius, written in the second century, and called the golden because of its excellency. It contains the adventures of Lucian, a young man who, being accidentally metamorphosed into an ass while sojourning in Thessaly, fell into the hands of robbers, eunuchs, magistrates, and so on, by whom he was illtreated, but ultimately he recovered his human form. Boccaccio has borrowed largely from this admirable romance; and the incidents of the robbers cave in Gil Blas are taken from it.